Importance of Good Emergency Management Essay Example
Importance of Good Emergency Management Essay Example

Importance of Good Emergency Management Essay Example

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  • Pages: 3 (618 words)
  • Published: December 13, 2021
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Emergency management is an area of specialization that deals with risks and creation of framework within which communities minimize the vulnerability to hazards and improving their capacity to cope with disasters. Disasters represent a broad range of issues and players as well. Therefore the range of situations that could be involved in an emergency management system is also extensive. Emergency Management can be divided into four phases which are; preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. This essay particularly looks at the preparedness and mitigation phases of Emergency Management of a risk or a disaster, particularly focusing on their differences and similarities.

Preparedness

Disaster preparedness refers to plans and procedures designed to enable different units of analysis-- which can be individuals, societies, households or organizations—to respond effectively to minimize damage and to recover swiftly when a disaster happen. The preparedness effor

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ts also aim to ensure that the necessary resources needed effective for a response when a disaster strikes are in place. The activities that are commonly associated with disaster preparedness include the formulation of disaster management plans, stockpiling of resources, and drilling of the response personnel to polish their necessary skills and competence to ensure disaster-related tasks are effectively executed.

Mitigation

Disaster Mitigation refers to the continuous efforts taken to minimize the amount of damage that a natural disaster would have on people or property. Mitigation is the most important phase of Emergency Management and applies to any unit of analysis and on any type disaster. These efforts can be structural or non-structural for example building of tornado shelter and evacuation.

Similarities between Preparedness and Mitigation

The fact that disaster preparation and mitigation are both phases of the Emergency Management plan means tha

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they share the same qualities and features. The most obvious similarity between the two processes like I have mentioned is that they are both phases of an Emergency Management. The disaster preparedness is the first phase of Emergency Management whereas disaster mitigation is the final phase of the Emergency Management. Another similarity between preparedness and mitigation is the fact that they both share the same objective. Each of the processes or phases is designed to help individuals and communities have a better outcome in emergency and disaster situations.

Differences between preparedness and mitigation

Despite the fact that both disaster preparedness and mitigation are phases of a single process of Emergency Management, there is also a notable difference between the two regarding the mode and approach of execution. The first example of this difference is funding of the two phases. The funds required for implementation of disaster preparedness are made available by the federal and state governments before the occurrence of an emergency or disaster situation. The funds for the implementation of mitigation measures, on the other hand, are released only after an emergency situation has already happened. Another difference is in the direction of the objective of helping the communities or individuals have a better outcome after a disaster. For preparedness, the efforts of its objective are directed towards lessening the impact of a disaster that has already happened, unlike the efforts of mitigation measures which are directed towards lessening the impact of future disasters (Chikoto et al. 2013).

Conclusion

Emergency Management is an important humanitarian field which has been around ever since the existence of disasters and emergencies. With the increasing cases of natural disasters as a result

of climate change and issues like terrorism, more effort needs to be put in sensitizing the general public on handling emergency situations.

Reference

  • Chikoto, G. L., Sadiq, A. A., & Fordyce, E. (2013). Disaster mitigation and preparedness comparison of nonprofit, public, and private organizations. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 42(2), 391-410.
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